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Yahoo
26 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Appeals court overturns Mosby's mortgage fraud conviction, upholds perjury charges
Former Baltimore City State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby walks out of the U.S. District Court in Greenbelt with her daughers after Mosby's sentencing in May 2024. (Photo by Bryan Sears/Maryland Matters) A federal appeals court gave former Baltimore City State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby a partial win Friday, overturning her 2024 conviction for mortgage fraud but upholding perjury convictions in connection with the purchase of two Florida homes. A three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals also reversed a lower court's order that Mosby forfeit a Florida condo as a result of the mortgage fraud conviction, noting that with the conviction now overturned, the forfeiture was improper. Neither Mosby's attorneys nor prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney's Office for Maryland immediately responded to requests for comment on the case Friday. Friday's ruling is the latest turn in the legal trials of Mosby, who served two terms as Baltimore's top prosecutor, from 2105-2023. She was indicted in 2022 by a federal grand jury on two counts of perjury, for falsely claiming a COVID-19 hardship on an application to withdraw $90,000 from her retirement account, and two counts of mortgage fraud, on charges she made false statements on mortgage applications for the two vacation homes in Florida that she bought in 2021. Her trials on the charges were held separately. At her perjury trial, Mosby argued that questions on the form that was the basis of her perjury conviction were 'fundamentally ambiguous.' The form asked if she had suffrered 'adverse financial consequences' during the COVID-19 pandemic that justified allowing her to withdraw retirement funds early without penalty; she said she feared the pandemic could affect Mahogany Elite, a travel firm she had founded. Former prosecutor Mosby gets probation for perjury, false claims convictions But prosecutors argued that Mahogany Elite could not have suffered financial consequences because it was brand new — she had 'not yet started the company, earned any revenue, or incurred any costs.' Jurors apparently agreed, convicting her on Nov. 9, 2023, of both perjury counts. At her mortgage fraud trial, Mosby argued that prosecutors never established that she was in Maryland when the alleged crimes occurred, but an overbroad jury instruction allowed them to determine she was, even in the absence of evidence. That jury convicted her on Feb. 7, 2024, of a single fraud count. Federal prosecutors sought 20 months in jail for Mosby, in addition to supervised release and the forfeiture of her Longboat Key vacation condo. But U.S. District Judge Lydia Kay Griggsby sentenced Mosby to three years supervised release, with one of those years under home confinement, along with the forfeiture of the condo. On appeal, the circuit court rejected her claims on the 'ambiguous' form, saying it was without merit. It was 'adequately clear' on the form what 'adverse financial consequences' meant, Circuit Judge Stephanie Thacker wrote in the ruling. But the court agreed with Mosby on the jury instruction, saying the trial court's instruction to jurors regarding the mortgage fraud case's venue was indeed 'erroneously overbroad.' Thacker's opinion said those instructions 'went so far as to say that the Government did not need to 'prove that the crime itself was committed in this district,''only that acts leading up to the crime were done in Maryland. That was wrong, Thacker wrote. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE After vacating the mortage fraud conviction, Thacker wrote, the court had to vacate the forfeiture of Mosby's condo in Longboat Key, what had originally been ordered because the condo was believed to be 'the fruit of the alleged mortgage fraud.' In a partial dissent, Judge Paul Niemeyer said he would have upheld the mortgage fraud conviction along with the perjury convictions. He wrote that the evidence at her trial 'amply and clearly demonstrated that venue was proper in Maryland by a preponderance of the evidence.' 'It showed that Mosby made the false statement in Maryland by obtaining and signing the false gift letter in Maryland and that she transmitted the statement from Maryland by uploading it to the Internet for use at the closing in Florida,' Niemeyer wrote. 'She also engaged her husband to wire the funds from Maryland in support of the gift letter. ' Those were all elements of the crime, which justfied its trial in Maryland, he wrote.
CNET
32 minutes ago
- CNET
This Massive AT&T Data Breach Settlement Could Pay $5K to Some: Find Out if You're Eligible
The 2024 hack of AT&T servers was one of the five biggest data breaches of the year. AT&T/CNET It's a tough time for AT&T -- especially with the recent conference call troubles for Donald Trump -- but their struggles could be your gain thanks to the $177 million settlement it's agreed to pay to customers that fell victim to data breaches in 2019 and 2024. On Friday, June 20, US District Judge Ada Brown granted preliminary approval to the terms of a proposed settlement from AT&T that would resolve two lawsuits related to the data breaches. The current settlement would see AT&T pay $177 million to customers adversely affected by at least one of the two data breaches. The settlement will prioritize larger payments to customers who suffered damages that are "fairly traceable" to the data leaks. It will also provide bigger payments to those affected by the larger of the two leaks, which began in 2019. While the company is working toward a settlement, it has continued to deny that it was "responsible for these criminal acts." For all the details we have about the settlement right now, keep reading, and for more info about other recent settlements, find out how to claim Apple's Siri privacy settlement and see if you're eligible for 23andMe's privacy breach settlement. What happened with these AT&T data breaches? AT&T confirmed the two data breaches last year, announcing an investigation into the first in March before confirming it in May and confirming the second in July. The first of the confirmed breaches began in 2019. The company revealed that about 7.6 million current and 65.4 million former account holders had their data exposed to hackers, including names, Social Security numbers and dates of birth. The company began investigating the situation last year after it reported that customer data had appeared on the dark web. The second breach began in April of 2024, when a hacker broke into AT&T cloud storage provider Snowflake and accessed 2022 call and text records for almost all of the company's US customers, about 109 million in all. The company stressed that no names were attached to the stolen data. Two individuals were arrested in connection with the breach. Both of these incidents sparked a wave of class action lawsuits alleging corporate neglect on the part of AT&T in failing to sufficiently protect its customers. Who is eligible to file a claim for the AT&T data breach settlement? As of now, we know that the settlement will pay out to any current or former AT&T customer whose data was accessed in one of these data breaches, with higher payments reserved for those who can provide documented proof that they suffered damages directly resulting from their data being stolen. If you're eligible, you should receive a notice about it, either by email or a physical letter in the mail, sometime in the coming months. The company expects that the claims process will begin on Aug. 4, 2025. How much will the AT&T data breach payments be? You'll have to "reasonably" prove damages caused by these data breaches to be eligible for the highest and most prioritized payouts. For the 2019 breach, those claimants can receive up to $5,000. For the Snowflake breach in 2024, the max payout will be $2,500. It's not clear at this time how the company might be handling customers who've been affected by both breaches. AT&T will focus on making those payments first, and whatever's left of the $177 million settlement total will be disbursed to anyone whose data was accessed, even without proof of damages. Because these payouts depend on how many people get the higher amounts first, we can't say definitively how much they will be. When could I get paid from the AT&T data breach settlement? AT&T expects that payments will start to go out sometime in early 2026. Exact dates aren't available but the recent court order approving the settlement lists a notification schedule of Aug. 4, to Oct. 17, 2025. The deadline for submitting a claim is currently set at Nov. 18, 2025. The final approval of the settlement needs to be given at a Dec. 3, 2025, court hearing for payments to begin. Stay tuned to this piece in the coming months to get all the new details as they emerge. For more money help, check out CNET's daily tariff price impact tracker.
Yahoo
39 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Forget About Inflation! This Is a Much Bigger Threat to Wall Street.
Volatility has been readily apparent for the Dow Jones Industrial Average, S&P 500, and Nasdaq Composite since 2025 began. Inflationary fears have been heightened by President Donald Trump's tariff and trade policy, as well as the rapid expansion of M2 money supply. However, there's no bigger threat to the stock market's rally than the earnings quality of Wall Street's most-influential businesses. These 10 stocks could mint the next wave of millionaires › Over the last century, the stock market has been a surefire moneymaker for patient, long-term-minded investors. Although other asset classes have increased in value over extended periods, including real estate, Treasury bonds, and commodities like gold, silver, and oil, none have come close to matching the annualized return of stocks. But just because the stock market offers a lengthy track record of making long-term investors richer doesn't mean Wall Street is free of volatility. Since the curtain opened for 2025, the benchmark S&P 500 (SNPINDEX: ^GSPC) and growth-focused Nasdaq Composite (NASDAQINDEX: ^IXIC) have both hit new highs. Additionally, the iconic Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJINDICES: ^DJI) and S&P 500 fell into correction territory, with the Nasdaq Composite enduring a short-lived bear market. Volatility tends to be driven by investor uncertainty and emotions. Though there's clear uncertainty at the moment concerning the prevailing rate of inflation and how rising prices might adversely impact stocks moving forward, a strong argument can be made that there's a much bigger threat to Wall Street than inflation. Let me preface this discussion by noting that a modest level of inflation is normal, healthy, and expected. When the U.S. economy is firing on all cylinders and expanding, it's expected that businesses will possess some level of pricing power that allows them to charge more for their goods and services. Historically, the Federal Reserve has targeted a prevailing rate of inflation of 2%. What has professional and everyday investors concerned is the potential for two variables to significantly increase the domestic inflation rate, which can have adverse consequences on corporate America, the U.S. economy, and the stock market. The first of these issues is President Donald Trump's tariff and trade policy. Following the close of trading on April 2, Trump unveiled his grandiose plan, which included a 10% sweeping global tariff, as well as higher "reciprocal tariff rates" on dozens of countries that have historically run unfavorable trade imbalances with America. For what it's worth, Trump has paused reciprocal tariffs on most countries until Aug. 1. The implementation of global tariffs comes with a host of potential problems, ranging from worsening trade relations with our allies to the possibility of foreign countries and/or consumers not buying American-made goods. But arguably the biggest worry of all with tariffs is their inflationary impact. Whereas output tariffs are applied to finished products imported into the country, input tariffs are duties assigned to goods used to complete the manufacture of products in America. Input tariffs run the risk of making U.S. goods costlier, and Trump's tariff and trade policy doesn't do a very good job of differentiating between output and input tariffs. An expected increase in the prevailing rate of inflation from Donald Trump's tariff and trade policy has even resulted in something of a "Trump bump" in Social Security's 2026 cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) forecast. The second variable that can cause the inflation rate to accelerate and remain well above the Fed's 2% target is the expansion of U.S. money supply. Similar to the prevailing rate of inflation, money supply is something we want to see growing at a modest rate. Expanding economies require added capital to facilitate transactions. Steady growth in money supply is one of the key markers of a healthy economy. What's specifically worth noting about U.S. money supply is the expansion we're witnessing in M2. This measure of money supply includes cash and coins in circulation, demand deposits in a checking account, money market accounts, savings accounts, and certificates of deposit (CDs) under $100,000. It's money that can be spent, but requires a little effort to get to. Over the trailing year, through May 2025, M2 money supply has increased by precisely 4%. It's the fastest year-over-year expansion in M2 since 2022 -- likely a result of the Fed kicking off a rate-easing cycle and making borrowing rates more attractive -- and it suggests a strong possibility of the U.S. inflation rate remaining stubbornly above 2%. But there's a much bigger downside threat to the stock market than inflation. The surface-scratching red flag for Wall Street is its valuation. When 2025 began, the S&P 500's Shiller price-to-earnings (P/E) Ratio, which is also known as the cyclically adjusted P/E Ratio (CAPE Ratio), was at its third-highest multiple when back-tested 154 years. Based on what history tells us, the previous five times when the S&P 500's Shiller P/E Ratio surpassed 30 and held this multiple for at least two months were eventually followed by declines ranging from 20% to 89% in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, S&P 500, and/or Nasdaq Composite. In short, the stock market has a track record of struggling when valuation premiums become extended to the upside. When stocks, collectively, trade at aggressive valuation premiums, it's often reflective of investor excitement over a next-big-thing innovation (e.g., artificial intelligence), as well as the result of strong earnings growth. But herein lies the real threat to Wall Street: Earnings growth has been a bit of a smoke-and-mirrors show for some of the stock market's leading businesses. Don't get me wrong -- some of Wall Street's most-influential businesses have blown the doors off of growth expectations with consistency for years. This includes Nvidia and Microsoft. But some of the stock market's top companies aren't nearly as operationally sound as they might appear -- and that's a problem. Electric vehicle (EV) maker Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) serves as a perfect example. On the surface, it's been profitable for five consecutive years and has relied on its first-mover advantages in the EV space, as well as its expansion into energy generation and storage, as a means to grow its sales and profits. But you might be surprised to learn that more than half of Tesla's pre-tax income has consistently derived from unsustainable sources, not from selling EVs or energy generation and storage equipment. In the March-ended quarter, Tesla reported $589 million in pre-tax income, of which $595 million came from selling regulatory automotive credits (which are given to it for free by federal governments) and $309 million in net interest income earned on its cash (less interest expenses). Without regulatory credits and interest earned on its cash, Tesla would have produced a $315 million pre-tax loss for the first quarter. Worse yet, President Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill, which was signed into law on Independence Day (July 4), is getting rid of automotive regulatory credits for EVs. Tesla is about to lose a 100% gross margin line item, which further exposes how poor its earnings quality truly is. Something similar can be said about Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL), but for different reasons. Apple's earnings quality comes under significant scrutiny if you back out the impact of its market-leading share buyback program. Since 2013, Apple has repurchased an almost unfathomable $775 billion worth of its common stock and retired in excess of 43% of its outstanding shares. Dividing net income by a shrinking number of outstanding shares has pushed earnings per share (EPS) higher and made the stock more fundamentally attractive to value seekers. But here's the issue: Apple's growth engine has stalled for years, and it's being completely masked by the company's outsized buyback program. In fiscal 2021 (ended Sept. 25, 2021), Apple delivered $94.7 billion in net income. For fiscal 2024 (ended Sept. 28, 2024), net income tallied $93.7 billion. Despite a $1 billion decline in net income over three years, Apple's EPS rose from $5.67 to $6.11, and its stock has rallied 44% since fiscal 2021 ended. In other words, the business has worsened from an income standpoint, but the company has added close to $750 billion in market value, which makes no sense. Therefore, although inflation is a headline story, it's the earnings quality of Wall Street's most-influential businesses that's the unequivocal threat to the stock market. Ever feel like you missed the boat in buying the most successful stocks? Then you'll want to hear this. On rare occasions, our expert team of analysts issues a 'Double Down' stock recommendation for companies that they think are about to pop. If you're worried you've already missed your chance to invest, now is the best time to buy before it's too late. And the numbers speak for themselves: Nvidia: if you invested $1,000 when we doubled down in 2009, you'd have $425,583!* Apple: if you invested $1,000 when we doubled down in 2008, you'd have $40,324!* Netflix: if you invested $1,000 when we doubled down in 2004, you'd have $674,432!* Right now, we're issuing 'Double Down' alerts for three incredible companies, available when you join , and there may not be another chance like this anytime soon.*Stock Advisor returns as of July 7, 2025 Sean Williams has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Tesla. The Motley Fool recommends the following options: long January 2026 $395 calls on Microsoft and short January 2026 $405 calls on Microsoft. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Forget About Inflation! This Is a Much Bigger Threat to Wall Street. was originally published by The Motley Fool Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
